<p>My child has a lack of awards... What are some awards he can apply for as a Junior?</p>
<p>Too late for this year’s submission, but mark your calendar for next December. Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. This is regional and then goes on to national competition --well respected by colleges. </p>
<p>Also search for local resources. For instance our school system just held a Martin Luther King Jr. Literary & Art Competition. D1 took 3rd place in photography. I actually did a quick search online because she had missed the deadline for Scholastic lol! </p>
<p>Will she be taking AP exams? 3 exams over a certain score earns “AP Scholar Award”. Hopefully that’s one to add by next fall (notification arrives in mail in Oct. I think following the May exams). </p>
<p>Girl Scouts or Boys Scouts previously? Bronze, Silver or Gold awards for service? Sometimes parents forget to hang onto these and actually colleges regard the awards very highly. </p>
<p>Sports awards? List them in resume too --dig through files! Sometimes we forget an award they earned in 9th grade :O.</p>
<p>Find out if your school participates in things like National Latin Exam, National French exam, Medusa Mythology Exam.
I think they are all coming up.</p>
<p>Not much info here to go on.</p>
<p>What is this student’s academic profile? What type of schools is he targetting for college? What does the rest of his “resume” look like - does he work p/t or f/t? What are his extra curriculars? </p>
<p>Is he thinking he needs awards on his application to gain admission to his target schools? Or for some other reason?</p>
<p>… because there is an “Awards” section on the Common App and it looks lonely if you leave it blank.</p>
<p>Is your student involved in any extracurricular activities that compete for anything? If the team (debate, mock trial, science bowl, math, language, music, etc.) wins, that is an award.
If your student writes for a school newspaper, he might submit an article to a student press association to try and get an award.
If your student is on a sports team, would it qualify to be an academic all-American team? Usually, this is based on the grade point average of the whole team. Such an award might be given through a national coaches’ association.</p>
<p>Our district PTA has an arts competition open to all students every fall - photography, music, art, writing, etc. Also, there are essay contests sponsored by Rotary, Jaycees, Optimists, etc in every town (and those sometimes include scholarships!). Plus, my D did National Latin Exam. </p>
<p>I’d advise your son to talk to his Guidance counselor about this. He/she should have some recommendations.</p>
<p>And don’t forget Honor Roll!</p>
<p>Ahh thanks! my son is looking at ivy league schools and he is very involved with community service and sports. He also does math team and such. If his team(math+sports) wins states for math, even though its a team effort, should he list it?</p>
<p>^Yes, just list it as team events (and his leadership role in the team if any).</p>
<p>It’s ok if there are no awards. (My kids didn’t have any, didn’t hurt).</p>
<p>Has your son taken AP exams yet? I think my daughter listed “AP Scholar” or whatever award they give for having a couple of 4 & 5’s on the exam under “awards”, given that she had nothing else to list.</p>
<p>I’d add that picking up a trivial award or posting something like “Honor Roll” under “awards” won’t make a bit of difference to the Ivies – it may fill the space, but they are focusing on bigger stuff. So it is probably much more significant to flesh out the details on the sports and community service, whether or not your kid has been given any sort of official recognition for his accomplishments in those areas.</p>
<p>My kid was not a competition kid and had basically no awards except AP scholar and NMSF and honor roll. She just got a likely letter from Dartmouth so i wouldn’t worry about the awards. They look at the whole application essay, recs, grades, test scores and interests. She had decent community service and was heavy into ballet but no awards or summer programs. Hope this helps.</p>
<p>Wow congratulations to her!!! My son is going to be the president of a volunteer club at school next year that raises over 10,000 dollars each year… is that something that could be an award or an outstanding EC?</p>
<p>Really, unless it is a national level award or something that the colleges are seeking, it doesn;t matter what one puts in there, as long as it is true. Leaving it blank just looks so skimpy.</p>